Fridae is pleased to announce that our original domain name Fridae.com, which we had been using for the past 11 years, has been returned to us following a decision of a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) Panel, on 2nd April 2012.
Fridae's original domain name, Fridae.com, had been redirecting to our new Fridae.asia site since June 2011 until this was disrupted by Fridae’s former CEO in November 2011.
Since then Fridae continued with business as usual through its new domain name Fridae.asia. Today, under new management who are totally committed to serving the LGBT community, Fridae.asia remains Asia's pre-eminent social networking and news and information site serving the LGBT community, with more than 500,000 registered members predominantly in Greater China, Southeast Asia and Australia.
Paul Thompson, Chairman of Fridae said: "We are delighted that the WIPO ruling has returned Fridae.com to its rightful owner. As an Asian business, we actually like our new name Fridae.asia which we believe reflects our unique position in the region and our commitment to the LGBT community in Asia.
"As such, we plan to continue to use the name Fridae.asia and users accessing Fridae.com (as well as Fridae.net and Fridae.org which were also returned to the Fridae group) will now be directed to Fridae.asia, our primary domain name. Although Fridae has been running with business as usual, during the recent removal of the fridae.com domain name, the situation had created confusion for our loyal members. So, indeed, we are very happy that this has now been resolved.”
Fridae, a Hong Kong registered company, will shortly launch a location based mobile application for its social networking site and is planning an LGBT travel and resource guide later in the year.
Fridae remains committed to developing a suite of services to better serve the LGBT community and supporting the empowerment of LGBT people in Asia. To date, Fridae has raised and disbursed over US$50,000 for projects that directly impact the LGBT community including Indignation (Singapore), Pink Dot (Singapore) and Taipei Pride Parade (Taiwan); and supported LGBT events across Asia including Hong Kong's Pink Season and the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, Indonesia's Q Film Festival, Asian Queer Film Festival (Tokyo, Japan), the International Conference of Asian Queer Studies (Bangkok, Thailand), and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)-Asia conferences in Chiangmai (Thailand) and Surabaya (Indonesia).
